The present invention relates to a method for in vivo treatment of tumorous tissues on body surfaces.
The medical literature dealing with various treatments of cancer is very extensive and the citation of only a small portion thereof would certainly make the present specification prolix. In spite of worldwide research and numerous significant achievements there have remained much to be solved and any small pace of improvement is significant.
It has been long known in the art that the irradiation of tumorous tissues by specific rays such as X-rays or isotopes have a growth inhibiting effect. Such treatments were based on the selective destructive effects of these rays for tumorous and healthy cells. A different branch of cancer research deals with chemotherapy.
Recently much effort is concentrated on the investigation of the immunotherapy with tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes. Of the pertinent literature a few number of papers will be cited. The first one is the work of Steven A. Rosenberg, Paul Spiess and Rene Lafreniere: `A New Approach to the Adoptive Immunotherapy of Cancer with Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocytes` (Science, Vol. 233, 19 Sept. 1986, pp. 1318-1321). The second reference is Richard L. Kradin and James T. Kurnick: Adoptive Immunotherapy of Cancer with Activated Lymphocytes and Interleukin-2 published in "The Year in Immunopathology, Pathol. Immunpathol. Res. pp. 193-202 (1986)". Rosenberg et. al have reported that the adoptive transfer of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) expanded in interleukin-2 (IL-2) has proved to be substantially more effective to mice bearing micrometastases from various types of tumors than lymphokine-activated killer (LAK) cells are. The combination of TIL and cyclophosphamide was further potentiated by the simultaneous administration of IL-2. Kradin et. al have disclosed that a measure of therapeutic success has been achieved by the administration of interleukin-2 (IL-2) and IL-2 activated lymphocytes in mice with metastatic malignancies. The Apr. 9, 1987 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine includes reports by two different groups of investigators concerning their experience with adoptive immunotherapy for cancer.
Our purpose of our citing these references was to demonstrate that there exists a certain degree of correlation between the responses of tumor cell on various treatments in mice and in humans.
In a quite different field of art a method has been suggested for the stimulation of biological processes relating to cellular activity, particularly for promoting the healing of wounds, ulcers and epithelial injuries which was based on the recognition that polarization property of laser light was responsible for the well-demonstrated wound-healing effect of laser light, thus the expensive and bulky laser could be replaced by a light source emitting incoherent polarized light. This invention is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,686,986 issued to Fenyo et. al, Mrs. Fenyo being one of the inventors of the present invention as well.
The polarized lamp has gotten a fairly moderate acceptance and its medical use has been rather limited. A few number of patent applications were directed to particular designs of polarized lights sources for biostimulation. Of these PCT publication WO-A-8 403 049 and published European patent application 84850395.9 can be mentioned as relevant.